Closer

1980

10

Murmurs of “...too soon...” and “...what if...” will never be far from Ian Curtis’ final statement. Closer was the fulfillment of the colossal promise of Joy Division’s brooding debut masterpiece, Unknown Pleasures, but it promised even more in return; Curtis’ eventual suicide would leave those expectations tragically unrealized. Though it’s easy to diminish the significance of what Joy Division left behind by second-guessing what could have come after, that would be more tragic. The true impact of Joy Division’s bass-leading, minimalist works is still being fully realized; echoes of the themes of fear, alienation, and loss they championed still resonate in so much music. That they might have gone on to surpass this fractured, wrenching catharsis is irrelevant; this is what is, and it is a thing of uncompromising beauty. –Eric Carr

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back

1988

9

Public Enemy was the real deal: a codified cultural force featuring an off-the-hinges production team (The Bomb Squad), the black-nationalist scholar (Professor Griff), menacing Para-Military types (The S1W's), the B-Boy (Flavor Motherfuckin’ Flav), and the mouthpiece that held it all together (Chuck D). The unrelenting momentum of Chuck’s radical rhetoric was matched pound-for-pound by the Bomb Squad’s dense, revolutionary soundghettos while Flav (who repped both big clocks and crack rocks) did his gyrating dance around armed Black Panther rejects, making Public Enemy possibly the finest example of Hip-Hop Theater, ever. And when all these elements gelled on It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, Public Enemy became the equivalent of a Molotov cocktail thrown into the ever-growing cultural necropolis of Reagan’s 1980s. –Sam Chennault

Rain Dogs

1985

8

Tom Waits’ life-as-theater has been onstage for nearly three decades, yet of all his albums, this one edges to the top of the pile. The second installment in his German art song/“Island trilogy,” Rain Dogs has the strongest songs and the surest grip on its own wanderings. With his hobo-centric lyrics reinspired by a move to New York City, Waits belts out “Union Square” and then rumbles out ballads like “Time”; the bleak vaudeville comes with accordion and pump organ wheezing out oompahs, while the percussion clanks, romps and slinks (“Clap Hands”). And then there are the guitars: Keith Richards shows up to make Waits look young and healthy, but it’s Marc Ribot whose icepick lines best suit Waits’ verses, and who owns the riff on “Jockey Full of Bourbon.” But c’mon, Waits, surely you could have stopped Rod Stewart from destroying “Downtown Train.” –Chris Dahlen

Surfer Rosa

1988

7

Surfer Rosa snapshots the Pixies when they were still young, fresh-faced, and (I assume) speaking to each other. Frank Black’s demonic one-man choir is already snuff-film disturbing; Kim Deal’s voice charms, having yet to be thoroughly scorched by cigarettes; David Lovering’s meaty fills float in ethereal reverb; and Joey Santiago proves himself master of the one-note riff. Maybe it’s Albini on the knobs, but Santiago’s six-string, sounding like a bee with its finger in a socket, is a key element here, bloodbath-battling Black’s tongue-speaking through “Something Against You” and “Vamos.” The band jumps from the abstract weirdness of tracks like “Broken Face” and “Tony’s Theme” to the effortless pop immediacy of timeless indie wonders like “Where Is My Mind?” and “Gigantic.” How one band could toe the line between jagged, artful unpredictability and sublime melodic bliss is anyone’s guess, but their gift has not been equaled since, and Surfer Rosa, easily their strangest and most chaotic outing, remains an unparalleled example of rule-smashing innovation in independent music. –Rob Mitchum

The Queen Is Dead

1986

6

In a way, this is the Smiths album-of-choice by default, as it’s the record that feels least like it was built around a few great singles. The pacing and sequencing are key, starting off with one of the band’s most urgent songs (the title track) moving to the jaunty and clever “Frankly Mr. Shankly,” before eventually getting around to the incredible “Cemetry Gates.” The back half has two of the finest songs of the modern guitar-pop era (“The Boy with a Thorn in His Side” and “There Is a Light That Never Goes Out”), some of Morrissey’s funniest lyrics (“Bigmouth Strikes Again”), and no filler. A new batch of lonely and alienated American teenagers discovers the Smiths every year. The reason is simple: few other bands could ever provide an antidote to adolescent yearnings as powerful as The Queen Is Dead. –Mark Richardson

Murmur

1983

5

Not widely noticed when it was released, R.E.M.’s first full-length album was surely a milestone: a clean break from everything else on the radio, Murmur introduced the band’s simpler, stripped-down, almost folky sound and its straightforward but insidious music. Guitarist Peter Buck jangles more gently than his garage or power-pop peers (like, say, producer Mitch Easter’s Let’s Active); but without a doubt, it’s Michael Stipe who defines the band with his deadly combination of feminine sensitivity and masculine, stoically cryptic vocals. And they brought great songs—“Radio Free Europe,” “Pilgrimage,” “Moral Kiosk,” “Catapult”... everything sounds just as good, and even as refreshing, two decades later. If any one album were single-handedly responsible for inventing alternative rock, this would be it. –Chris Dahlen

Doolittle

1989

4

Quick—pick the most influential alternative rock band of all time. If you didn’t choose the Pixies, I’ll give you another chance. In the meantime, listen to Doolittle and learn from your mistakes. In all of indie/alternative, there may be no single album more borrowed from, adapted, or flat-out ripped-off than the Pixies’ follow-up to Surfer Rosa. Steve Albini once dismissed the band as “boring college rock,” and he was half right—the Pixies were college rock in 1989. (The “boring” half was obviously added to pad his notoriety, as anyone who could call this band boring is surely The World’s Biggest Asshole.) Doolittle is almost senselessly varied—mood-altering hooks, poetically insane lyrics, larynx-demolishing screams and surreal croons, surf, thrash, pop, slow burns and races to the finish line... Let me put it this way: if not for Doolittle, there would be no Pitchfork. In other words, the influence of this record is so vast that, 15 years on, it has altered the course of your life at this very moment. –Eric Carr

Paul’s Boutique

1989

3

Once upon a time, three Brooklyn Jews lost their Def Jam street cred. They’d already been punks and raunchy pop-rappers, and damn if they didn’t find themselves lost as to what to be next—until down swooped the Brothers Dust. These fairy godbrothers helped them usher forth a dense samplorama that tanked sales-wise because it was so much smarter than its predecessor. Paul’s Boutique was free of riff-slag, and boasted mostly unfunny, intimidatingly allusive lyrics. Just as the African-American Gwendolyn Brooks opened up doors for poetry, allowing epics to be written about dehumanizing Chicago tenements, the Beasties expanded hip-hop’s domain to namecheck Salinger, Dickens, Galileo, and Newton. So ahead of its time, it should be on a ’90s list. Odelay would owe it back rent if they didn’t have the same landlords. –William Bowers

Remain in Light

1980

2

As the 1970s gave way to the 1980s, the Talking Heads found themselves at an awkward time: after punk, which they were at first associated with, had become synonymous with three chords and a sneer, but before the arrival of new wave. So they congregated in a Nassau studio with Brian Eno and created a record without precedent—one that merged the restlessness and anxiety of the former genre with the futurism of the latter. The resulting album, drawing influence from tribal Africa, is massively percussion-fueled, dense with elaborate polyrhythms and elastic bass. Adrian Belew’s bizarre guitar work flavors the music with erratic, technological pings and effects, even nailing modem noise with crystalline foresight. Byrne’s lyrics are at their surreal best here, with shapeshifting as a recurring theme, but also at their most affecting on songs like “Once in a Lifetime,” which poignantly addresses the passage of time and the crossroads at which we find ourselves during life, and “Listening Wind,” whose haunted refrain finds us sympathizing with a man for whom terrorism is the last hope for preserving his culture. Both daringly experimental and pop-accessible, Remain in Light may be the Talking Heads’ defining moment. –Ryan Schreiber

Daydream Nation

1987

1

I could sit here and force-feed you dietary information about Daydream Nation’s purported Importance, and because it’s ended up as our ’80s MVP, perhaps that’s expected. But really, the reason I like Daydream Nation better than anything else spawned between 1980–89 is that, hell, it’s just the greatest fucking album. Few musical moments are more guaranteed to bring me joy than the joyous riff and snare rim clicks that kick off “Teen Age Riot.” Never was the elusive Sonic Youth balance of noisecraft/songcraft kept so gloriously intact—despite containing few songs under five minutes, this is still the most accessible album they ever made (including even that brief period when they were trying to be accessible). Thank their confidence in allowing themselves to stretch out their improv legs in the studio, to present the record with bright, clear production, to keep all the SKREEERAWWWKKK within the context of actual melodic songs. Thank the highest Lee ratio ever to be found on a SY product, and unparalleled composition consistency from Thurston and, gasp!, Kim. Daydream Nation was a noisy punctuation mark to the evolution of sub-radar rock in the Reagan years, and as long as people are still listening to guitars, it will remain a milestone. –Rob Mitchum